So how are we supposed to rescue them, anyway? I asked Miyoshi telepathically. Long range attacks would be pretty conspicuous.

  The cat was probably already out of the bag, but the two guys being assaulted before our very eyes were in the middle of filming a TV show.

  I guess we have no choice, Miyoshi responded. Let’s have the ladies put in the work for us.

  Excuse me?

  “Okay, Mitsurugi, Saito, these are for you!” Miyoshi pulled out two compound bows wrapped in towels and handed one to each of them.

  Saito’s eyes widened.

  “Whoa! Where did you get these?!”

  “Dungeons are a constant battlefield. One must never neglect their preparations,” Miyoshi explained smoothly, a smug look on her face. Mitsurugi and Saito stared at her in awe, falling for her excuse hook, line, and sinker.

  I’m sorry, ladies, but you’ve been conned.

  “H-Help, please! Someone, anyone! Hel— Argh!”

  Gurgling sounds ensued.

  “Oops. He finally fell over,” Miyoshi said.

  “And he was trying so hard to protect his camera too.” That poor thing is swimming with the fishes now. Score.

  “Come on, aren’t you two being kind of mean?” Saito observed.

  “They do seem a little...less than concerned,” Mitsurugi agreed.

  Uh-oh. I’m in danger of being wrongfully branded a cruel, uncaring man.

  “W-Well, a bow should only be tense when you’re using it, right? When it’s not in use, shouldn’t it stay relaxed?” I stammered.

  “Don’t you think now of all times would be when you’d want to use it, though?” Miyoshi pointed out. “You’re about as loosey-goosey as they come right now, Kei.”

  I squinted across the water at the monster, which was waving its tentacles wildly and doing absolutely nothing else, and the two men in front of it, who were holding their arms up as they sailed up into the air with each massive splash attack.

  “I mean, it still really just looks like they’re filming some stupid movie to me...”

  “You know, you’re not wrong!”

  Sighing loudly at our banter, Saito and Mitsurugi both drew their bows simultaneously.

  “Hup!”

  The arrows they fired struck perfectly into both of the shark’s eyes. The octopus shark opened its mouth wide, reared its head into the air, then turned to face the direction the arrows had come from.

  “Waaauugh!”

  With a massive splash, it sent the two hapless, screaming men in front of it hurtling away, then took off like a bullet in our direction.

  “Hey Kei! I forgot to mention—I’m pretty sure that movie monster was amphibious.”

  “That thing can move on land?!”

  Saito and Mitsurugi kept firing a whirlwind of arrows into the shark’s head, but it seemed to pay no heed to its status as a pincushion and kept beelining it for the shore.

  “Uh-oh, we’re in trouble, Yoshimura! Do something!”

  “I wish you could be a little more specific than that...but no worries. You guys’ve got this.”

  “Huh?”

  With a loud crunch, the shark’s head suddenly shot upward. No doubt Miyoshi had surreptitiously given it a particularly mean iron ball uppercut to the jaw.

  “Whaaa?!”

  When she saw its head raised, Mitsurugi fired a barrage of arrows into the shark’s open mouth, until all at once, its tentacles stopped moving and the beast’s entire body turned white. Despite that, inertia kept it going, and the charging octopus shark slid lifelessly across the sandy beach, leaving a long, straight groove behind it.

  “Didja get it?” Miyoshi asked.

  “Sure seems like it,” Saito responded.

  Apparently the barrage of arrows had destroyed its cranial ganglion, causing the same whitening reaction as when fishermen humanely killed octopuses.

  Like any other dungeon monster, the defeated octopus shark then dispersed into black light, leaving behind some kind of small, boxlike object.

  “Wh-Whoa... Is that a drop item?!” Saito sputtered in shock upon seeing the object.

  “C’mon, you don’t need to freak out about it. You’ve seen items drop before, haven’t you?” I pointed out.

  “I mean, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen a drop from a monster I defeated!”

  GTBs (Goblin Treasure Boxes) aren’t actually considered drops, and she probably had no idea what happened on the tenth floor that one time... Wait, wasn’t it Mitsurugi who landed the finishing blow on this thing?

  Saito bounced merrily over to pick up the item—but when she grabbed it, she made a strange face.

  “Huh?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It says, uh... Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda on it.”

  “The hell is that?”

  “That’s the second movie in the franchise,” Miyoshi replied, doing her best to keep from bursting into laughter.

  “Looks almost like a DVD case...” I murmured.

  “Um, a DVD? As a drop item?”

  I’ve certainly never heard of it happening before, so by that standard I guess it could be considered rare. On the downside, though, you could probably just buy the damn thing instead of dungeon diving for it... And really, just a plain ol’ DVD? In this day and age?

  “Is it some kind of rare software, maybe?”

  As Saito examined the item carefully, Miyoshi simply shook her head and responded with a succinct “Nope!”

  “Boo... Well, then, do you want it, Haru? As a memento or something?”

  Mitsurugi looked at the object questioningly. “What’s it about?”

  “It’s about a hybrid pteranodon-barracuda fighting that thing you just took down. The baby sharktopus is actually super adorable!”

  Eyeing Mitsurugi’s reaction to Miyoshi’s explanation, I could practically see the giant question mark over the poor model’s head.

  “What on earth?” I couldn’t help but blurt out.

  “In the third movie, a former baseball player is turned into a hybrid of a killer whale and a wolf, then gets to face off against the sharktopus on a baseball field!”

  “Sorry, you’ve lost me. Completely and utterly.”

  Mitsurugi, having actually slain the monster, ended up getting the DVD, ostensibly as a memento.

  Later on, I watched the movies online. They were exactly as Miyoshi had described them.

  ***

  “Oh, maaaaan, Saito... You really saved our asses out there! Wanna be on our show again?”

  “I will respectfully pass.”

  Squad Leader Yoshida let out an appreciative whistle.

  “That was so cool, though! Woulda been a match made in heaven, if you ask me...” He brazenly stood there trying to smooth-talk Saito into making another appearance on his show.

  Meanwhile, his cameraman Jo took the camera from him and started patting it down with a towel Miyoshi had given him, checking to see if it still worked at all.

  “Yoshida, this thing is dead in the water... What are we supposed to do? I can’t afford to replace one of these...”

  Apparently the camera was completely fubar. Unless they’re waterproof, you really aren’t supposed to turn on waterlogged electronics until after they’ve completely dried out, y’know.

  “What matters right now is what’s on the damn thing! Can you check the memory card?”

  “Not here, I can’t.”

  “Damn! Well, we may as well just take the card out and—”

  Before Yoshida could finish his suggestion to at least salvage the memory card and dry it off, we suddenly heard some kind of voice coming from the rocky area beyond the beach.

  “—Is that singing?”

  “I think it’s coming from her.” Miyoshi pointed to the location in question, where a beautiful woman was seated. She was naked from the waist up, but from the waist down—

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “So we’re doing Hans Christian Andersen stuff now? Since when was the Côte d’Azur on the Scandinavian coast?”

  “I mean, our octopus-shark buddy from earlier was a Florida thing. Though people can find ‘The Little Mermaid’ statues all over the world, nowadays.”

  Even just in Japan, there were a number of replicas scattered around, including one at the Umitamago Aquarium in Oita, and others at Osaka Bay and the Port of Nagoya, to name a few.

  The one at Osaka Bay used to be off by itself in a rather obscure location, with the verdigris creeping up it providing a certain dreary charm. Unfortunately, it had recently been moved to a much more touristy spot.

  There was even one at Sapporo Station, which was about as non-beachy as you could get. Maybe all people really cared about was putting the statues somewhere relatively close to the ocean.

  “Speaking of mermaids, we can’t forget about the one back in Obama,” I reminded Miyoshi.

  “That one was supposed to be the traditional type—fish from the waist down,” she pointed out.

  She was right. The statue in Copenhagen just had normal legs with fins for feet.

  When the two moping men in front of us saw the source of the singing, they jumped to their feet in excitement.

  “Don’t let her get away! Start rolling!!!” Yoshida shouted.

  “But we don’t have a camera!” Jo pointed out.

  “Gah, that’s right! Dammit! I’ll use my phone, then!”

  “Just because it’s in high resolution doesn’t mean it’ll be suitable for broadcast TV...”

  “Who cares? It’ll be like a mockumentary!”

  “I thought you hate mockumentaries, don’t you?”

  “Listen, there’s a time and place for everything! Ah, shit, she’s gonna look like an ant unless I get up close with this thing. Let’s move!” Yoshida cried.

  Apparently it was too far away for a phone cam to get a decent image, even zoomed in. Weapons of choice in hand, the two of them dashed off toward their target. What’s the point in bringing your cameraman along if he doesn’t even have a working camera anymore, though?

  “Those network folks just don’t seem to run out of energy, do they?” Miyoshi murmured. I couldn’t tell if she was more impressed or annoyed.

  At that point, I noticed Mitsurugi tilting her head, poking her lip with her finger.

  “But, um, Yoshimura?”

  “Hm?”

  “Did the Little Mermaid even sing?”

  Oh yeah, now that she mentions it, in the original story, she traded her voice for a pair of legs.

  “Huh,” I grunted, rubbing my chin. “Then what is singing out there?”

  “C’mon, Kei, you know this one!” Miyoshi chided. “Can you think of any monsters that look like mermaids and sing?”

  It only took a moment for it to come to me.

  “Ohhh... Sirens!”

  In ancient times, sirens were depicted with the lower half of a bird. In the Middle Ages, though, the lower half became a fish instead, and that depiction survived into the present day as the Starbucks logo. Back when they had their original brown logo, it was very obviously a siren with two fish tails in place of her legs.

  When I cast my glance in that direction, I saw Yoshida and Jo beelining it toward the mermaid creature with tottering gaits, heading deeper and deeper out into the water.

  The phone Yoshida had been holding fell into the ocean with a plop, its light dimming slowly as it sank beneath the waves. Apparently Jo’s camera had already fallen back into the drink as well. Which was the perfect place for it, in my opinion—but something was off.

  Miyoshi turned to me.

  “Is it just me, or...”

  I nodded.

  “I’m pretty sure they’ve been charmed.”

  “At this rate, they’ll end up waltzing right out into the deep ocean and drowning, won’t they?”

  “I mean, maybe, but...” I trailed off. I’m not super excited about the idea of smashing a beautiful woman’s face in with an iron ball either...

  Just as I was mulling that over, a shrill sound pierced the air. I heard a horrifying shriek, and the singing suddenly went quiet.

  “Nailed her!” I heard Saito call out.

  The siren slumped down into the sea, two arrows sticking rudely out of her forehead.

  “Uh...?”

  “Um, why so surprised...?” Mitsurugi asked. “It was a monster, wasn’t it?”

  “O-Oh, uh, yeah, definitely.” Shocked by their complete lack of hesitation, I stammered out a random excuse. “Those were just...really nice shots, considering how far away we are.”

  Well, as humanoid as it might have looked, I guess they wouldn’t have sweated the finer details from this distance. A target is a target, after all.

  “What, you mean the fruits of our special training?” Saito beamed.

  Oh yeah, I almost forgot—she’s an Olympic gold medalist now, huh? Man, she’s really managed to rack up the accomplishments...

  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there had been some doubt at first whether or not the Olympic games would even be held last year. However, owing to that whole phenomenon by which the virus was neutralized by merely entering Japan, not only had the Olympics been given a green light, but there had also been a massive influx of tourists from all over the world. In fact, accommodations all over the place had been booked to max capacity—even ones that had nothing to do with the games whatsoever. The Olympics had been basically just an added bonus.

  At any rate, Saito, alongside other athletes with explorer backgrounds, had put forth some amazing performances throughout the event. The resulting flurry of world records had even sparked renewed debate about whether explorers should be given their own separate competitive categories apart from the general populace.

  Of course, Mitsurugi was no slouch either. She had been right there alongside Saito a moment ago, firing off arrows with roughly the same degree of accuracy...

  “You know, there sure are a lot of monsters on this beach,” Mitsurugi pointed out.

  Saito nodded in agreement.

  “Isn’t it kind of dangerous for a place like this to be on the first floor?”

  “You can mostly blame Kei for the plethora of monsters,” Miyoshi said, looking over at me.

  “Huh?” Saito turned to me as well. “What’s the big idea, Coach?”

  “Whoa, hold on a sec!” I objected. “I don’t know what you think I did here, but you’re wrong! I’m an innocent man!”

  The actress continued eyeing me.

  “Reeeally?”

  Sheesh, all I wanted to do was have a nice bit of summer relaxation at the beach. Instead we’ve got a never-ending parade of monsters to deal with, TV network guys breathing down our necks...and not so much as a moment’s peace.

  “Hey Miyoshi. Let’s just pack up and get out of here.”

  “What? But we haven’t even...” She trailed off for a moment. “Okay, maybe we have had enough ‘relaxation’ for today.”

  “Right?” I agreed.

  “Fair enough,” Saito chimed in. “Our clothes may have dried off, but I’m all sticky and salty. We may as well get our showers in and relax with some nice refreshing drinks!”

  “Sounds good to me!” Miyoshi replied with a grin.

  As the two ladies came to an agreement, Mitsurugi scrunched her brow and turned to us in curiosity.

  “So how did the two of you end up here, anyway?”

  Miyoshi and I exchanged a brief glance. Then, with a smile, I hastily pointed to the portal the others had come out from.

  “The same way you did. How else?”

  ***

  Still, climbing up two meters above the water’s surface in a location where our feet could barely touch the ocean bottom was, quite frankly, not going to be possible.

  Miyoshi led us over to a thicket across the way, where she casually happened across an inflatable boat that had been “hidden there the whole time,” according to her. We then hopped on and floated over to the door everyone had come in through. It wasn’t the most stable of surfaces, but the doorway was only two meters up, meaning we could reach the edge of the opening if we stretched our arms out. It would be a cinch for any explorer to pull themselves up and through.

  As we watched the four Riviera trespassers climb through one by one, Miyoshi whispered into my ear.

  “Hey Kei. Any idea whether this place will keep existing once we’ve all left?”

  “Honestly, I was concentrating so hard on making it, I never even thought about what would happen afterward.”

  “How very haphazard of you.”

  “If I had created the door in our office, we could’ve used this place as a private beach.”

  “It’s more like some kind of crazy theme park, if you ask me—with some particularly dangerous performances. Not exactly family-friendly.”

  If this place acts the same as a dungeon, the octopus shark and the siren have probably already respawned somewhere. Though I highly doubt the same can be said of Ms. Maker’s fin.

  “Aren’t you coming, Coach?”

  Looking up, I saw Saito peeking down at me from the doorway. I responded with a quick wave, then decided to send Miyoshi up first. If any more weird monsters popped out, I wanted to be ready for them. By this point, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash even if a flock of flying killer tomatoes came swooping down on us.

  “You go ahead, Miyoshi.”

  “What about the boat?”

  “We’ll just have to leave it for now.”

  Miyoshi probably could’ve easily retrieved it from up top, but with the network guys there, we couldn’t afford to take any risks.

  Though I get the feeling they’ve probably seen enough action for one day.

  “Fine, we can just sneak in and retrieve it later.”

  I sighed.

  “Penny-pincher.”

  “Would it hurt you to just call me ‘economical’?” Miyoshi replied with a pained smile, then springboarded off my clasped hands into the entrance two meters above us as if it were nothing at all.

  Giving the area one last visual sweep, I bade farewell to the beautiful, yet highly questionable, beach area, then propelled myself up toward the opening with what was intended to be a light hop.

  “Ack!”

  Unfortunately, I had forgotten one important fact: My stats were still maxed out. That meant I nearly jumped straight up past the cut-out portal, like a ninja bounding over the walls of a historic samurai residence.